Article on Toby Young's west london free school - I don't understand admissions

[PollyParanoia]

Ok article is here from yesterday's standard.
I do find all this stuff about "we want a school with high standards" a bit strange - is there anyone head or parent who actively wants a crap one?
But my main question is one of admissions. It says that the site is 3 miles from Toby Young's house. Presumably that would mean that his four children wouldn't get in if it's done on catchment. Is this the case? If true, it seems strangely admirable and altruistic of him to be doing all this hard work. I suppose I should be applauding his philanthropy rather than assuming he wants an education he can't afford to pay for...

Justin..Ed..Stefan..Toby..Cosmo and Robert.

Sorry, the very first thing that struck me were the parents names!

I will now read the article.

Yes I don't really get the whole freeschool thing either.

Are free schools allowed to be selective? If not, how does he propose to maintain "grammar school standards"?

If they are allowed to be selective, is this not incredibly divisive and basically just a reintroduction of grammar schools by the back door?

I have no idea how they think they're going to get 100% 5 A*-Cs at GCSE when they're only doing traditional subjects and not being selective.

Project manager says in that article "I think we will end up with a lottery for admissions, so it's far from certain that our children would qualify anyway."

just read this bit:
"Entrance requirement: Still under discussion but will be fully comprehensive."

If it's fully comprehensive, how can there be an entrance requirement? It seems like a contradiction!

Or is the entrance requirement to have a parent named Ed, Cosmo, Toby or Justin?

I know they can't be academically selective so that's why I'm confused about how he and his chums Cosmo et al (that's a bit of Latin, btw, so very useful) are going to insure their children get in. All along, Toby Young's said it's about how he doesn't want his kids to go to Acton whatever it's called comprehensive because only 40% get good GSCEs. Surely you can't guarantee your child a place in new school by virtue of having set it up?

will have to earmark the article to read later, but I've been quite interested in free schools.

no idea if I'd want to send my DCs to one though. It's such a risk, IYSWIM. having absolutely no idea how the school would turn out. scary!

obviously we have little idea what school will be like for our kids until they go, but at least with an existing school you have a rough guess!

I think it's interesting and tbh I do admire them for getting on and doing it. And the curriculum is comfortable reading for me in a familiar way, and looking at their backgrounds, familiar for them too. Fair enough that they want that for their children too.

It's also quite sweet in a [facepalm] kind of way - I've already forgotten the name of the one who says, effectively, that a small number of those entering may not have the ability to get to a top university... you get the feeling they have very little idea what a full range of ability really looks like.

Interesting experiment, depending on what exactly gets cut so that the DfE can fund this.

I suppose that parents who don't think that their children will benefit from a very traditional education and compulsory Latin are less likely to apply, so there's probably an element of pre-selection there. I can't see how they are going to offer decent SN provision based on the headline information available (although there may be more on that when the full proposal becomes public, I suppose).

"The Project Manager
Suzie Hobart, 39"...
'I think we will end up with a lottery for admissions, so it's far from certain that our children would qualify anyway. If we didn't get into the school, I'd be very torn between the state sector and the private. But there is a limit to how much you are prepared to compromise when it is your children's education at stake.'... wonder how long she'd stay 'project managing' if if didn't directly advantage her own DCs?

Justin Tooth seems to think his own DDs admission is a given.

Thing is, as far as I can see, these people want a private style education but don't want to pay private prices. One makes mention of how private schooling has become 'disproportionately expensive'. What I don't they they realise, from their own backgrounds (all seemingly from either wealthy and/or very motivated families) that a successful academic educational outcome depends of 3 things:

Academic child
Academic school
Motivated, and possibly reasonably well academically educated parent.

One of the issues we face in this country is how we have all been hoodwinked into thinking that that only academia matters, therefore we shoehorn non academic kids into completely unsuitable courses which they fail and sometimes disrupt: even the teaching unions decry the possible setting up of 14+ 'technical colleges' because it GASP! 'selects', and selection is bad, bad, bad.

If they manage to set up this school, you can bet one of two things will happen: They will discover that IF they are 'forced' to take all comers, and all comers apply, the school will fail to meet its academic targets because an averagely academically able child may NOT master physics and Latin as they're difficult subjects; or they will find a way of selecting by ability or social class. To a certain extent, making the application process opaque or complex will scare off 'less desirable' families, and it is possible that the government may covertly support this as they want this flag-ship project to be seen to be 'working'.

On paper the lofty aims and ambitions seem laudable but imho, all that will actually happen is some private companies will become wealthy on tax-payers money and many middle class families will be able via their cunning and motivation, to get a cut-price 'private' education for their child and the other local schools will disappear down the swanee.

And I agree entirely that Cosmo et al (more Latin! See? It's working!) really have no idea what the whole gamut of educational ability actually means having never encountered it in their grammar and private schools.

I really don't get it to be honest.

I mean, why why why take money away from already stretched schools who are doing their best to jump through all the hoops the government has set up, and give it to people with no experience, no track record, and without the same restrictions on their operations?

Imagine if I decided to set up my own hospital, operating out of an old shoe shop. Oh and by the way, I'd like a % of the NHS budget and I don't want to have to adhere to all those pesky target and NICE standards.

I don't think they necessarily want a private style education but don't want to pay private prices -- or not all of them. I think many of them think that all that is wrong with modern state schools is that they have moved too far away from "traditional" subjects and "traditional" expectations of discipline and hard work, and that if you put those things back then magically all children will be able to get good GCSE results.

It's quite sweet, in a way. And I am curious to see what happens if they get the go-ahead.

yy professor

unfortunately i agree with ampere that I am also curious to see what happens to results in local state schools

It will be interesting to see if they can bypass or subvert fair admissions. I know Toby Young's kids are at a v exclusive church primaryb school (this from a man who has a well documented love of coke and porn, but the church welcomes the repentent sinner) so it wouldn't surprise me if they found a way of circumventing admitting all comers. However, the disadvantage of being such a publicity hound is that anything dodgy would be publicised too...

There is a large group of parents at my DC's primary school who are in despair at the secondary schools on offer locally. There are two that they like which are very hard to get into for catchment and selection reasons and there is the nearest one which is a good school if your child is bright and does not get with the bad crowd but is truely comprehensive. They just don't want their precious children mixing with 'the wrong type'.

They are exactly the sort who would set up one of these free schools and I cannot think of anything worse having seen these sort of parents at their worst. There is also no way they would want it to be comprehensive in the true sense because then kids from the council estates might apply.

PollyParanoia - funnily enough the primary school my DC go to is an incredibly hard to get into church school. Maybe they breed this sort. (disclaimer - DC got in on pure fluke, we did not churchify).

Ingrid, I'm absolutely sure that over-subscribed faith primary schools do. Parents can't believe that there isn't a way to replicate the social cohort that their kids have had in primary years in secondary schools. It seems to me in London that there are lots of "good" Cof E primaries but that the "secondaries" are Catholic or jewish, hence requiring a sudden coversion when your child reaches yr5.

Sorry that should read "good" secondaries not secondaries in inverted commas...

I think you're all being a bit cynical, tbh.

What I'd guess they're trying to do is something like what's been achieved at Mossbourne School in Hackney. Mossbourne's first set of GCSE results had something ridiculous like 85% getting 5 A-C, far higher than most schools in middle-class areas, never mind in Hackney, and the value-added scores were even more jaw dropping.

Clearly it is possible to do astonishing things with a challenging intake, although there are lots more schools that have tried it and not succeeded. Unfortunately nobody has yet produced a patented formula for repeating that result across other contexts, but if they think they can do it, then good for them.

But how are they going to reconcile admitting my DD who has Down Syndrome but for whom school is actively recommending mainstream secondary and a 100% GCSE record? This is not a idle question, we are near neighbours of Mr Young and DD is Y5 now so we are currently selecting schools...

I suppose you should get your own dc in by virtue of being involved - in the same way that you can jump the queue in Cubs/Brownies by committing to be a leader.

Actually I like the idea of Toby Young's school - but like others I would probably spy from the sidelines to see if it worked or not.

And can I perhaps throw a spanner in the works by mentioning academies that did spectacular well in their first 2-3 years- but are now falling down the ladder? I readily I can't cite names but it is something I've read recently. I have no idea why this should be the case- honeymoon period?

Also, and I so appreciate I am in dangerous waters here- IF we accept the statistics that rank DCs from differing ethnic backgrounds according to academic achievement as being accurate, COULD it be that the successful academies have large intakes of DCs from ethnic communities whose DCs in general do better academically, who value education more highly than other groups but who can't afford to go private or bus DCs across our cities? The failing local comp becomes an academy, and suddenly their DCs are in new premises with higher expectations, hand picked teachers and stricter discipline and lo! The DCs fly. The spin off effect is critical mass- if there are sufficient clever enough, school-ready DCs in a school they will tend to pull the slackers up- perhaps.

Could that be what we see in these academies?

Frogs, I think Mossbourne is partic admirable given that its intake is largely from a traditionally lower achieving cohort. If the west london free school can do the same with a genuinely representative mix (ie comparable to the other local schools in terms of free school meals, special needs, English as a second language) then I will take off my cynical hat and replace it with a worshipful one.